**2.6. Design of the I4 equipment scorecard (I4-ES)**

On first impressions it appeared that the VDMA's *Toolbox Industry 4.0 for Product* [5] is not relevant to this study because this study is not focused on the product which is being manufactured. The production equipment is the Original Equipment Manufacturer's (OEM) Product, so it is relevant. By assigning the same numeric score to each column it becomes possible to create a second numeric scorecard namely I4-ES Scorecard for Equipment. This approach also facilitates the utilization of *Current*, and *Target* scores to enable the quantification and management of improvement. Unfortunately, the common denominators of not *connected, partially connected, fully connected, analyze & predict* and *adaptive* which are on the I4-PS do not map directly the I4-ES. Even though it is tempting to change some of the content of the VDMA Toolboxes this has been resisted to ensure that adherence to the VDMA's best working practice is always retained. The minor embellishments proposed in these sections only assist with the usability of the tool but do not compromise the integrity of the content. It is important to note that the I4-PS and I4-ES are owned by the Business and Technical Stakeholder's respectively. This provides a very similar format of scorecard which will undoubtedly assist in bridging the gap between the two domains.

## **2.7. Definition of the equipment types**

An in-depth review of leading assembly and packaging equipment Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) revealed a common denominator; *They all transport and perform actions on the product* [7]. A review of the logic and motion technology providers also revealed a common denominator; *they all recommend the utilization of servo motors with decentralized drives synchronized via motion control networks as opposed to mechanical synchronization* [7]. But not all equipment types require motion synchronization between the transport system and stations organized around the transport system. It is perfectly valid to have equipment which operates in an asynchronous or semi-synchronous fashion. At the other extreme, there is a growing requirement to synchronize process data between the stations and transport system. Using the technologies which synchronize the transport and stations as a separator this work defined and published a novel classification method for the different Equipment Types whereby *0—No motion synchronization, 1—Mechanical motion synchronization, 2—Mechanical & electronic motion synchronization, 3—Software based motion synchronization and 4—Software based motion & data synchronization* [7].
